The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-07-08
BITTER CREEKS BAD MAN.


Creek" said w. F. Robbins at the
Russ house recently. ~ can't help
it. was from there, and now can't
very well get away for keeps. Besides,
why should I? am doing very well
there and like the place.
''Bat get a little weary. Every
where go when put down my name
the fool clerk says:
"'Oh, ahal You're the Bad Man
from Bitter Creek, are your"
"These things make me wearyl New
to the idiotic clerks and others per-
haps, who make the remark, but
awfully old to me.
"You say you half supposed this
Bitter Creek. or at least the Bad Man
part OF it, to be hypotheticalY Not a
bit of it. Consult your map. You'll
find one Bitter Greek In Wyoming, two
in Arizona, one and possibly two in
Utah, one in Montana and one in Cali
fornia. Almost all are small streams
or they would be called rivers els you
may suppose
Well the genuine and historic
stream is in southwestern Montana,
and that's where / hail from. The
creek is 40 miles long and empties
into the Cark's Fork of the Columbia.
The bad man was fellow named
Jim Yount, an exceedingly rocky in-
dividuaL who came there in very early
times from Tennessee NOBODY knew
the exact date, for he was ahead of
most everybody else. He was none
of your mild hammered sort of men,
as Slade was represented to be.
Originally in Tennessee, suppose he
was a Knob-hilier, and as he grew old
er he rapidly grew worse.
Upon my word, hs was the most
vicious, vidictive man that ] ever
heard of. He fairly earned the title.
We heard he was q murderer in Ten
nessee of three boys, playmates in
school whom he didn't like. He
sloped to Missouri and knitted an old
gentleman in whose employ he was
because the old man insisted on his
getting up at seven O'Clock in the
morning
ale blazed his way in this manner
pretty effectually TO the west. One
OF his first deeds, which the pione
OF Montana recollect, was the shoot
ing off OF both ears ola bullwhacker by
jim
Jim saw him driving along, and re
marked to friend that he thought he
could make a center shot on the
teamster's big ear. The friend doubt
ed it, and he let her go. He struck
the auditing apparatus plum in the
middle. Before the teamster could
clap his hand on tho shot ear, whack
went ball through the other one.
THE bad man then asked the bull
whacker if he didn't want him to pres
ent him with couple OF earbobs,
since he had such nice round holes to
put them in.
"His next deed was to burn q school
house, some twenty miles away. He
claimed the children made faces at
him as he was going along one day,
and he'd be hanged if he'd have such
kids to grow up to know any more
than he did.
"Tn dispute with two confeder-
ates about some stolen horses In go,
O. year after his school house affair,
he killed both of them, took all the
stock and gobbled their money He
didn't even bury the fellows, but left
their bodies lying only fifty yards or
so from the corraL
"But his best hold was in the
saloons. He'd drink q barrel OF
whisky every few days no soft drinks
for whisky every lie had
a bleared, blotched face that looked
like chrome, and his oaths and
language in general was something
frightful to hear"
81 don't recollect crime IN those
early days that he didn't commit
He held up stages, stole bullion and
robbed mails with impunity. Nobody
molested him. Everybody teigned
not to know who did it, and every
body went around cringingly asking
jim, as they patted him on the back,
to take a drink Quite often he'd get
mad at this even, and tell them to
haye a care how they came slobbering
around him or he'd shoot the tops OF
their heads of.
"Jim played many brilliant engage
ments of this sort around ylrginlaa
city, in Montana, Boulder City and
other places. His Bitter Greek ranch
was only q rendzvous for him, q sort
OF central point, where he and fellow
thieves rounded up their stolen
horses and cattle. !" "Jim ran along
for several years inthis way, cutting,
shooting and killing Until he boosted
himself that two graveyards wouidn !.
hold the people that he had laid
away.
"In 1867, however. Jim made one
trip too often to Helena, He had
made his record over there. But the
rich placers had drawn a most OF bad